Generative AI

In 2024, Generative AI (GenAI) is poised to revolutionize healthcare and life sciences. From accelerating drug discovery to personalizing medicine, GenAI holds immense potential to improve patient outcomes and streamline processes.

Drug discovery & design: Imagine AI systems that design novel drug molecules targeting specific diseases. GenAI can virtually generate these molecules, saving time and resources in the traditional drug discovery pipeline.

Personalized medicine: GenAI can analyze a patient’s unique data (genetic, medical history) to tailor treatment plans and predict responses to medications. This could lead to more effective and targeted therapies with fewer side effects, a key focus in personalized medicine.

Clinical trial design: Traditionally, clinical trials rely on real patients. GenAI can create synthetic patient data for testing new drugs, speeding up development without compromising on safety or efficacy.

Medical report automation: GenAI can analyze patient data and generate comprehensive medical reports, freeing up valuable doctor time for patient interaction. Reports summarizing medical history, current condition, and treatment plans could become a reality.

Patient education via Chatbots: GenAI-powered chatbots can answer patients’ health questions in a clear and concise manner. This improves patient understanding, promotes medication adherence, and empowers individuals to manage their health more effectively.

AI-powered wearables and the Internet of Things (IoT)

The convergence of AI-powered wearables and the Internet of Things (IoT) is revolutionizing patient monitoring and preventive healthcare.

Proactive health management: Think of wearables that track your vitals, sleep, and activity. AI analyzes this data to detect potential health issues early, like heart problems or even signs of diabetes. This allows for earlier intervention and better long-term health outcomes. AI-powered wearables can also become personalized health coaches, providing exercise routines, dietary suggestions, and medication reminders to keep you on track.

Remote patient monitoring: For chronic conditions like heart failure, AI-powered wearables continuously monitor vitals and transmit data to healthcare providers. This allows for remote monitoring, timely intervention in case of complications, and potentially fewer hospital readmissions. Wearables can even monitor patients recovering at home after surgery, allowing healthcare professionals to track progress remotely.

Mental health support: Wearables can track sleep, activity, and physiological responses. AI analyzes this data to identify potential signs of depression or anxiety, prompting interventions or connecting patients with mental health resources. Additionally, AI-powered wearables can provide biofeedback and personalized stress management techniques to help users manage their mental well-being.

Medication adherence: Smart medication dispensers can remind patients to take their medication and track adherence, which is particularly beneficial for chronic conditions. Wearables and AI can also provide personalized medication reminders that take into account sleep patterns and activity levels.

Research and development: Wearables can collect vast amounts of real-world health data. AI can analyze this data to identify trends, understand disease progression, and potentially develop new treatments. Wearables can also be used in clinical trials to collect real-time data on how patients respond to new medications or treatments, leading to more personalized and effective clinical trial designs.

Data governance, security and privacy

As healthcare becomes increasingly reliant on technology, data security and privacy become essential. In 2024, we expect to see a continued focus on regulations and best practices to ensure the protection of sensitive patient data.

Robust cybersecurity measures: Implementing robust cybersecurity measures like firewalls, data encryption, and multi-factor authentication will be crucial to deter cyberattacks and data breaches.

Transparent data governance policies: Clear and transparent data governance policies will outline how patient data is collected, stored, accessed, and used. This fosters trust and empowers patients to understand how their information is managed.

Patient education on privacy rights: Educating patients about their data privacy rights will be essential. This involves informing them about how their data is used, with whom it’s shared, and the steps they can take to control their data.

Equipping the workforce for the future

The successful implementation of these tech trends hinges on a skilled workforce. The industry will need professionals who understand both healthcare and technology. Educational institutions and healthcare organizations will need to develop training programs that bridge the knowledge gap and equip the workforce with the necessary skills to navigate this tech-driven future. Imagine a new breed of healthcare professionals — data-savvy doctors who can leverage AI-powered diagnostics tools and nurses adept at using telehealth platforms to deliver remote care.

Forte Group: Your partner in healthcare innovation

At Forte Group, we are committed to building secure, scalable, and user-friendly solutions that empower healthcare providers and researchers to achieve their goals.

Looking to leverage technology to transform your healthcare practice or research lab? Book a meeting with our experts today and let’s discuss how we can help!

Top 3 tech trends shaping the future of Healthcare in 2024 was originally published in Forte Group on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Translating Business Requirements into Data Specifications

Before you even begin collecting or preparing data, it’s crucial to have a comprehensive understanding of the business problem at hand. This understanding informs the entire data preparation process, from acquisition to transformation. Start by:

• Defining Clear Objectives: Break down the business problem into specific, measurable goals that your AI model aims to achieve.
• Data Specifications: Determine the types of data needed, the granularity required, and any temporal or spatial considerations.
• Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): Establish the metrics that will define the success of your AI model, guiding your data preparation efforts.

With well-defined objectives, you can create a data preparation strategy that aligns directly with your business goals.

Data Collection: Methods and Challenges

Data collection is a foundational step, but it’s not without its challenges. For seasoned professionals, the focus should be on leveraging advanced data acquisition methods and overcoming common obstacles.

• Data Sources: Collect data from diverse sources — structured databases, APIs, web scraping, and unstructured sources like text and images. For large-scale projects, consider distributed data sources or cloud-based data lakes.
• Data Acquisition Challenges: Handle issues such as rate limits in APIs, varying data formats, or incomplete data feeds. Use ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) processes to streamline and automate data collection.
• Data Integration: Employ tools like Apache Kafka or Apache NiFi for real-time data streaming, ensuring a seamless flow of data across different systems.

The goal is to ensure that your data is not only comprehensive but also relevant and high-quality, providing a strong foundation for your AI models.

Advanced Data Cleaning Techniques

Raw data is often rife with inconsistencies, errors, and missing values. Advanced data cleaning goes beyond basic methods to ensure that your dataset is pristine.

• Handling Missing Data: Use sophisticated imputation techniques like K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN) imputation or multiple imputation by chained equations (MICE). For large datasets, consider deep learning-based methods for imputation.
• Outlier Detection and Treatment: Implement statistical methods such as Z-score, IQR (Interquartile Range), or Mahalanobis distance for outlier detection. Alternatively, use machine learning-based anomaly detection techniques.
• Error Correction: Automate the correction of common errors using data validation frameworks like Great Expectations, which can enforce schema constraints and detect anomalies.

These techniques ensure that your data is accurate and consistent, which is vital for training reliable AI models.

Data Quality Assessment

Assess data quality to identify potential issues and ensure data reliability.

• Completeness: Measure the proportion of missing values.
• Accuracy: Verify the correctness of data values.
• Consistency: Check for inconsistencies across different data sources or within the same dataset.
• Timeliness: Ensure data is up-to-date and relevant.

Regular data quality assessments help maintain data integrity throughout the AI lifecycle.

Data Transformation: Enhancing Features for AI

Transforming data into a format suitable for analysis is a complex process that can greatly enhance model performance.

• Normalization and Standardization: Apply min-max scaling, z-score normalization, or log transformations to standardize your features. Understand when each method is appropriate based on your model’s requirements.
• Dimensionality Reduction: Use techniques like Principal Component Analysis (PCA), t-SNE, or UMAP to reduce feature space while preserving data variance. These methods are crucial for handling high-dimensional datasets.
• Advanced Feature Engineering: Create powerful new features by combining existing ones, applying domain-specific knowledge, or using techniques like polynomial features, interaction terms, and Fourier transforms for time-series data.

Advanced data transformation not only prepares your data but can also uncover hidden patterns that improve model accuracy.

Feature Engineering Techniques

Explore more advanced feature engineering techniques to create informative features.

• Domain-Specific Features: Leverage domain knowledge to create features tailored to your specific problem.
• Interaction Features: Combine existing features to capture non-linear relationships.
• Time-Series Features: Extract time-based features like trends, seasonality, and cyclic patterns.

By carefully selecting and creating features, you can improve your model’s predictive power.

Data Splitting: Strategies for Robust Model Evaluation

Splitting your data into training, validation, and testing sets is a standard practice, but advanced methods ensure robust model evaluation.

• Stratified Sampling: Use stratified sampling to maintain the distribution of target classes across splits, especially in imbalanced datasets.
• Time-Series Splitting: For time-dependent data, consider expanding window splits or rolling window splits to mimic real-world forecasting scenarios.
• Large-Scale Data Splitting: When dealing with massive datasets, use distributed computing tools like Apache Spark to efficiently split and manage data.

These strategies help prevent overfitting and ensure that your model generalizes well to unseen data.

Addressing Data Imbalance: Advanced Techniques

Data imbalance can severely bias your AI models, leading to poor performance on underrepresented classes. Advanced techniques can mitigate this issue.

• Cost-Sensitive Learning: Modify your learning algorithm to penalize misclassifications of minority classes more heavily. This can be done using class weights in algorithms like Random Forest or Neural Networks.
• Ensemble Methods: Implement ensemble techniques like Balanced Random Forest or EasyEnsemble, which are designed to handle imbalanced datasets by combining multiple models.
• Synthetic Data Generation: Use advanced methods like SMOTE (Synthetic Minority Over-sampling Technique) or GANs (Generative Adversarial Networks) to generate synthetic examples that balance the dataset.

These approaches help create fairer models that perform well across all classes.

Data Validation and Testing: Ensuring Integrity and Reliability

Before deploying your AI model, it’s crucial to validate and test your data rigorously.

• Data Leakage Prevention: Use techniques like cross-validation and hold-out sets to ensure no information from the test set leaks into the training process, which could artificially boost model performance.
• Cross-Validation Techniques: Employ k-fold cross-validation or nested cross-validation for a thorough assessment of model generalization.
• Automation in Validation: Integrate data validation steps into your CI/CD pipelines using tools like Great Expectations, ensuring continuous monitoring of data quality.

Thorough validation and testing are essential to ensure that your model performs reliably in real-world scenarios.

Concluding thoughts on Data Governance

Preparing data for AI is both an art and a science, requiring a deep understanding of both the business problem and the technical challenges. For AI consultants and data engineers, mastering advanced data preparation techniques is crucial for building models that not only perform well but also deliver real business value. This requires a strong partnership with business units who will benefit from AI as well as take responsibility for the quality and consistency of their data. They must become good stewards.

By focusing on detailed data catalogs, advanced tools and methods for data cleaning, transformation, and validation, and addressing common challenges like data imbalance, you can ensure that your AI models are built on a solid foundation of high-quality data.

Preparing data for AI: A guide for data engineers was originally published in Forte Group on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

If you’re not acquainted with the term, referral program refers to a strategic initiative implemented by companies to encourage their employees to recommend friends, family members, or professionals within their network for available job opportunities. In the world of IT, where finding top talent is like finding a needle in a haystack, referral programs are a game-changer.

So, what’s in it for you as an employee?

Firstly, you have the opportunity to assist your friend in securing an exceptional job at our company. Not only is it a kind gesture, but it also brings a sense of satisfaction, knowing that you played a significant role in introducing a valuable asset to our team. Additionally, many companies, as well as Forte Group, offer cash rewards for successful referrals.

Referral programs have the potential to enhance employee engagement and foster a great sense of community. By actively participating in the recruitment process, you become more personally invested in the company’s success. Moreover, when you refer someone, it conveys a powerful message, “I think you’d be a valuable addition to our team.” That kind of confidence can go a long way in creating a positive work environment.

Referral program benefits

Now, let’s delve into the reasons why referral programs hold immense value for the companies. When you refer someone, you essentially endorse their skills and abilities, so you’re not likely to recommend someone who isn’t a good fit for the job. Furthermore, since referred candidates already have a connection within the company, they’re more inclined to stick around for the long term. In fact, studies show that referred candidates have a higher retention rate than candidates from alternative sources.

Referral programs are not only cost-effective but also highly efficient. Instead of allocating significant resources to recruitment efforts like job fairs or advertising, companies can rely on their employees to bring in top talent. After all, who knows the company culture and team dynamics better than the people who are already a part of it?

Naturally, there are some considerations to keep in mind when it comes to referral programs. One of the biggest concerns is the potential lack of diversity. People tend to refer others who resemble themselves, so it’s important for companies to ensure they’re not limiting their candidate pool. But with comprehensive training and a commitment to diversity and inclusion, these challenges can be effectively addressed.

How can you get in on the referral program action?

Talk to your friends and family about any open positions at the company, and let them know you’d be happy to refer them. And if you do make a successful referral, don’t be shy to brag about your achievements. Share your success story with your colleagues and encourage them to get involved.

So, why wait ? Seize the opportunity and start referring!

Referral Program: a win-win for everyone involved was originally published in Forte Group on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Would you like to learn more about AWS?

Forte Learning Academy recently held a tech talk on AWS and hosted inspirational speakers who ignited the interest in AWS certifications for our people even more.

Glenn Eckstein, Sr. Director of Architecture & Engineering, TSO, started the tech talk by emphasizing that Forte is an AWS partner. Why did we create a partnership with AWS? The answer is simple: most of our clients use AWS. And we want to ensure we’re doing two things; providing the best services to our customers, and telling them we have the right resources, staffing, and skill sets to solve their problems best. The partnership offers us so many benefits to make our resources for everyone who is working on the client, from product owners to engineers, to salespeople, to understand precisely how we can build the best products, and best solutions for our customers and not reinvent the wheel.

Glenn Eckstein: “So that’s why we are a partner — to get better prepared so you’re not reinventing the wheel, and you get those prime solutions, those accelerators right out of the gate.”

Everyone at Forte gets access to the partner portal once they sign up. You get access to learning — there are a bunch of tracks you can do: you can do on-demand training for any topic, so no matter if you want to be certified or not, if you’re working in AWS or you just want to know more about those topics, there is impressive content available, it’s free, it’s on-demand. You can look through it and see what you could learn more about the things you use and understand how to leverage the AWS ecosystem better.

You can choose between an AWS Partner training to get certified or really learn about a larger topic, like Solution Architecture, a self-paced training where you can just choose what you want to learn about, and instructor-led training which you can sign up for in advance. They typically take between 2 to 4 hours, and you can have them either early in the morning, or late afternoon, so you can easily adjust them around your schedule.

Earning your AWS Partner Accreditation is a great first step toward establishing yourself as a leader in your organization, and you can easily get a badge. There are three available accreditations to establish a strong foundation for your AWS-based practices and prepare for new customer opportunities:

1. AWS Partner: Sales Accreditation (Business) — or product owners, salespeople, anyone who is not really technical;
2. AWS Partner: Accreditation (Technical) — you will get fundamental, technical knowledge of AWS cloud computing, global infrastructure, services, and common solutions;
3. And AWS Partner: Cloud Economics Accreditation — more about the benefits of migrating your customers to the AWS Cloud. If you don’t know where to start, these accreditations are the easiest ones to start with.

What should you know about available AWS certifications?

There are different levels — from easier to a little harder, professional, and more experienced. There are three tracks: Architect, Operations, and Developer. Those are the main tracks, and then there are a bunch of specialties.

Starting at the bottom there’s a cloud practitioner — the basic, easy certification that is recommended for anyone who uses a little of AWS, uses it around the job, or maybe just wants to get started. It’s easy to take if you’ve been using clouds for six months.

Then you move up to the Associate level which requires prior cloud experience, around one year. If we talk more about Architect vs Developer tracks, Solutions Architect — a broader path to understand how to build your applications using all the networking tools; it’s about building solutions, and the Developer track is more about how to focus on the code and making sure the things you write will run effectively with all other AWS components.

What are other certification benefits?

When getting your digital badge, you can then showcase your AWS Certification achievement on social media and email signatures, and you will get immediate access to exclusive AWS-sponsored certification events. You will also get a 50% discount voucher to apply toward recertification or any other exam. One of the benefits is Event Recognition. If you’ve ever been to AWS Summit, there’s a special rope-off area, you can get behind the red rope because you have your certification; they wine and dine you at the airport.

You also get access to a special community online where you can ask questions and learn more.

The stories of success as a Certified Engineer by Humberto Bringas and Nicolas Serfiippo

Humberto studied together with Nicolas and encourages everyone who wants to study to find people in the same situation and start studying together.

“Getting a certification helped me to have a broader vision of solutions in general,” says Humberto Bringas, “For example, the six pillars that the AWS framework allows me to understand a solution from different points of view giving a more holistic solution to the customer. You can also learn the right terms and the right language, which allows you to communicate with other AWS consultants and communicate your ideas properly with a client.”

Nicolas Serfilippo: “We had a very useful experience through these different real case scenarios that were provided through this course. It helped us a lot in exercising, designing, and presenting solutions for many types of business requirements. That eventually led us to gain the necessary knowledge and confidence to provide much narrower designs and patterns to follow for our different clients’ requirements and present them in a clear and effective way.”

📢Pablo Blauer, Director of Delivery, on the benefits of AWS from the perspective of Delivery: “As a Delivery Director, I want to reinforce what was said about the benefits of AWS. I strongly believe that our team should certify and go to the next level with AWS because I believe that this will bring personal and collective growth.”

From the company level, it will bring a lot of benefits for delivery because AWS as a leading cloud provider can help us build more scalable, more reliable, and more secure applications. And by getting certified our team will get deeper knowledge and we will be able to create more valuable software and our deliveries will be much stronger. And our reputation as a software development company will grow and will help us win more business, more opportunities and help the company grow and have more opportunities for everybody.

On a personal level, it’s super beneficial as well because it helps you stay up-to-date with the latest trends and best practices and this will improve your own skills, which will empower you within your team or even with your stakeholders, with the clients, with everybody that you talk around, and will let you have more informed conversations and have better solution architecture.

Certifying will only bring better outcomes for everybody so Pablo strongly encourages you not only to learn this information and learn about the benefits and opportunities but also to set it as a goal this year.

Adrian Paredes, Principal Engineer, AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner, has shared his experience on getting the certification: “I’m a newbie here. I took the exam last Saturday and passed on my first try.”

In Adrian’s case, he has been working as a Developer with AWS on different projects and with different clients, and he admits that managers convinced him to take the certification. In the beginning, he was in doubt if the Cloud Practitioner exam was the right one for getting started. The idea of starting with Solutions Architect was tempting, however, he preferred not to skip the basics and start from the beginning. He says the topics he had to study for the exam were really interesting. It took him about one month to study, roughly 5 hours per week; he, maybe, invested more hours in the last week to get prepared better. The exam is very easy. The material used for preparation was mainly a course in a skill-building platform called “Low Practitioner Essentials”.

Adrian Paredes: “My team was guiding me through interesting links to read and our internal chat room was valuable as well to anyone who wants to join the AWS adventure. I was in close contact with our skilled peoplewho helped me by answering questions, recommending topics, articles videos, and a lot more.”

And to conclude, Adrian tells us it’s worth certificating, it’s a good experience, and it’s a perfect excuse to reserve time to dig deeper into many cloud concepts and to get to know many of the thousands of services that comprise the AWS platform.

Iryna Chaban, L&D Manager, on Forte Learning Opportunities:

We create some internal opportunities to make the learning process easy and structured.

1. The policy on full certification support.

2. An active chat where with communicate with the professionals on AWS, those who are already certified, and those who are on the way, and you will be able to get the answers to all your questions, share experiences, and have interesting discussions, so feel free to join because it’s very easy.

3. A great library of training materials — it’s very easy to register and we provided clear instructions on how to do this.

📌Q&A session:

“What certificates would be the most suitable for front-end developers?”

Glenn: “I think there are two paths there. One is Practitioner — it’s for everyone, it’s easy, very straightforward, all the fundamentals are there and you really get to understand how you can hone your skills. The next level up would be the Developer one. If you are more code heavy and you know how you run your web applications — that’s the one to work on and learn how to build frontend js systems that work with serverless easy backends or integration layers. If you want to understand more about how you are using Cloudfront, and how you are managing your content — the Solutions Architect will be the best to understand the whole system, so it really depends on what your path is, but those are the two options to go.”

“Which area of business/the world do you think is benefiting most from AWS cloud computing nowadays?”

Glenn: “I’m gonna say AWS is everywhere. The way we built software 5 years ago is outdated. Being able to build cloud-agnostic or cloud-specific solutions is going to give each team, each developer a push forward, an advantage to build better products. The more you know about the cloud the easier it is to refactor some of those old solutions into new ones or be able to actually move faster. Agility is really the goal that our teams always push for and what the market is asking for — how I can build more products easier and faster in the cloud and not have to adhere to the old standards.”

“If my role is not IT-related, am I eligible for one of the certifications, and which one?”

Glenn: ”That is an amazing question. Yes, you are. We do have sales folks who are taking it, we have a lot of different folks that are taking it. I would suggest starting with the Accreditations. That is the easiest part, it’s just 2,5–3 hours to kind of gather around what the concept is, how to move forward, and what it means. And then the Practitioner would be the top-level one.”

⚡Join our community of tech enthusiasts always ready for tech challenge in social media Instagram — Facebook — Youtube or check opportunities here.

Is AWS Certified Worth It? Experience of Our People That Boosted Their Career was originally published in Forte Group on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

As a multicultural global company, we have opportunities for our employees to relocate to different countries where we have a presence. We understand that relocation can be a stressful and challenging experience for employees and their families. That’s why we have established comprehensive relocation support to help make the transition as smooth as possible.

Our relocation team assists with everything from visa and immigration processes to finding housing and schools in the new location. We also provide financial assistance to cover relocation expenses, such as transportation and temporary accommodations.

In this article, we’ll hear from four employees who have relocated. We’ll give an intro to each video where you can watch more from them. Laura and Petr relocated to Colombia, while Ricardo and Yauheni relocated to the USA. They will share their stories about their challenges and how our company’s support significantly impacted their relocation experience.

Petr’s story: Turn over a new leaf

In March 2022, Petr got an opportunity to relocate to Colombia. In April, he started to prepare documents for the visas. He emigrated with his family — his wife and 8-year-old daughter. On August 5, they were in Medellin. The whole process took five months. It contained visas, planning, searching for a school for his daughter, and finishing some tasks in Belarus.

“Our company’s relocation support program was a big factor in our decision to relocate. We had no illusions about Colombia, but Medellin surprised us,” Petr said.

But Petr advises not to have high expectations. Calculate the pros and cons. And be ready for adaptation and learning Spanish.

Laura’s story: Relocate to Colombia for new opportunities

Laura has been an account manager at Forte Group for almost one and a half years. Last ten years, she lived in Colombia. She decided to relocate from Spain on her own because of gaining new experience and getting new opportunities. The relocation process was straightforward and super fast. She was able to apply for her visa and received a response super quickly. It took less than two months, and she thinks it’s a short time to relocate and have everything to go to another country.

At first, her expectations were super ground-to-earth. But she was so excited about what happened when she got here. She shares her warm impressions about living there.

Colombia is my second home!

Yauheni’s story: Start everything from the beginning

Yauheni has been a QA engineer for Forte consulting for the last nine years. He had been working from the European office and had moved to Chicago. The first couple of months were mainly related to finding a replacement for the previous project and position, performing a kind of knowledge transfer to that new person, and closing the questions from the earlier project perspective. So the intensive relocation itself took something around three months. Document preparation, embassy appointment, and the movement took around three months. The relocation allows us to start something from the beginning.

“It brings you that feeling that you’re alive and could still be surprised by something, move somewhere, and develop yourself. The relocation was not so stressful for us, and the reality was approximately the same as expectations, primarily thanks to good preparation from our relocation manager staff, who prepared much useful information for us,” Yauheni said

Ricardo’s Story: From relocation to buying house in Chicago downtown

Everything started from H1b. Now I got a green card and live in Chicago downtown in my house with my family. Ricardo and his family also received assistance with the visa process. Forte supported him during all processes.

“Our company’s relocation program was very helpful. They provided us with a relocation allowance that covered our expenses and helped us find a place to live in the USA. The process was challenging, but having our company’s support made it a lot easier.We felt like we were in good hands,” Ricardo said.

In conclusion, people are the main value of Forte Group. We offer relocation support to help make the transition of our employees as smooth as possible. From financial assistance to administrative support, we try to provide our employees with everything they need to relocate with ease.

As demonstrated by the stories of our employees, relocation opened new opportunities for them and brought valuable experience.

We are committed to making the relocation experience of our team members as seamless and stress-free as possible, so you can focus on the exciting new opportunities that lie ahead. It’s part of our culture. It’s part of how we care about people.

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Relocation Support: How Our People Moved to the USA & Colombia was originally published in Forte Group on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

2022 was a challenging year, full of uncertainty and difficulties, especially for our Ukrainian colleagues. Despite all the turmoil that 2022 offered us, not just the war but also the global economic slowdown, we as a company performed well. It was a year of transformation and growth, we have a clear strategy and vision of where we want to be in the coming years. We united around our values, and ensured we all strive and improve together.

With our employees in our hearts, we did amazing things together to improve people’s experience across all Forte locations. We’ve worked on significant projects, initiated social projects, created an internal people club, supported our Ukrainian employees, and launched training programs.

Everything we have done is based on our values: caring about people, delivering quality at scale, curiosity, and resourcefulness. In this article, we want to summarize all the vital moments that make our employees’ work more comfortable and inspiring.

Expanding worldwide

In 2022, we opened two new offices in Canada and Uruguay and relocated our headquarters from Chicago to Boca Raton, Florida. We constantly work on opening new working hubs to allow our employees to visit the office and meet with colleagues.

As many employees relocated to Poland this year, we decided to open an official hub in Krakow.

We do everything to work with no boundaries at Forte.

Bringing best talent

At the end of the year, our global team consists of 900+ innovators, product leaders, engineers, and professionals. We grew by +30% compared to the previous year and hired 277 specialists.

Strengthening our leadership

We have new names on our board who strengthened our team with their expertise and vision. Mikael Carlsson joined Forte as the company’s new Chief Executive Officer. Mikael brings more than 20 years of leadership experience from the digital engineering services industry.

Michael Makishima joined as the company’s Chief Financial Officer and Tom Scopazzi became Forte’s Vice President of Business Development.

Lee Barnes, founder and CTO of Utopia Solutions, joined Forte Group as a Partner and Chief Quality Officer. Lee brings his 25 years of quality assurance and testing strategy expertise to Forte, emphasizing our belief that quality is central to driving value through software delivery.

Investing in learning and development

By upgrading our team, we boost everything around us. With the widening talent pool, we’ve been introducing new initiatives to grow our employees’ ecosystem.

We are proud that 60% of the management team is raised in Forte.

We endeavor to be extraordinary and continuously improve through learning and development programs, team mentorships, knowledge sharing, and communication with our colleagues.

Our Learning & Development Academy conducted 15 soft skill training sessions for 145 participants and 19 English-related events (speaking clubs, marathons, workshops, webinars, ESPs) for 221 participants.

We provided full-cycle Agile Training and Certification for 12 company key players and supported and reimbursed Certifications and external training for 42 employees and three teams and access to O’’Reilly learning platform for our employees in Europe.

In June, we launched individual English classes. Since then, we’ve had ten students regularly attend the classes and drastically improve their language proficiency. Also, about 140 students regularly attend 29 English groups. In August, we launched Polish classes for seven groups and 40 participants. In November, we started the Forte Learning Academy Blog on Forte Intranet.

Making a contribution to education

We organized four free online educational events worldwide. In January, we launched Salesforce Bootcamp in Colombia to help people learn in-demand Salesforce development skills. As a result, we welcomed nine new colleagues to our Medellin office!

Forte Learning Academy developed the formats of educational events and launched two projects for Ukrainians. A free educational QA program for Ukrainians was aimed at educating students on theoretical QA basics with the help of Forte Group QA experts.

Thanks to our students’ patience, passion for knowledge, and diligence, we offered five positions to our best graduates.

The second was QA Tech Week when everyone without prior knowledge could learn QA basics. More than 400+ people attended each lecture. Finally, we gave out the certificates, which confirmed their level of preparation, to 79 participants who completed the final test successfully.

Supporting relocation

Forte organized more career opportunities and professional development for employees and expanded relocation programs, packages, and geography. Some results demonstrate the work of our Travel & Relocation team:

1. We provided financial and psychological support and focus to employees in the relocation
2. 400+ Forte Employees and their family members got PBH visas
3. Four families moved to the US and some more are still in progress
4. 100+ relocation consultations to make sure our people have all the needed information for a secure and confident travel experience
5. 25+ Business trips happened even during this turbulent year.

Caring about wellbeing

Our corporate psychologist held 900 + individual and group sessions, 15 therapeutic groups, and five thematic events.

To develop the well-being of the company, we established two wellness groups. The goal of the self-knowledge group is to share thoughts about what is happening around us and discover aspects of our personality and potential. During the group for newcomers, employees who joined Forte in a particular month do exercises to get to know each other better.

In addition, we have implemented psychological support into the onboarding and relocation processes.

Upgrading onboarding

We redesigned our onboarding process. As a result, a structured onboarding program kicked off in May boosted higher engagement and productivity and helped build trust and alignment. Moreover, we conducted more than 470 meetings related to onboarding activities with newcomers during this year.

Filling our environment with unity

Throughout the year, we carried out two engagement surveys, and according to employees’ feedback, we defined the priorities to work on in 2023. 60% of employees in all our locations participated in them. We do this regularly to follow the atmosphere in the team and implement new ideas into our work.

In May, we launched Forte People Club — a place where we are getting closer by creating wellness, knowledge-sharing events, sports, and fun activities.

During this time, Forte People Club became a robust community where employees participated in thematic contests, webinars devoted to overcoming fears, and cognitive bias, cross-cultural communications, etc., and holiday initiatives. Within Forte People Club, we started cooperation with a professional online trainer who helps our employees stay active and keep a work-life balance.

We got around 10000 reactions under posts and 900+ attendees at our events. We involved Forte people and their families to join in contests and thematic activities. We plan to work on the concept of Forte People Club further to make the work of our people more comfortable.

Corporate culture leveling up

We conducted significant internal research in which 77% of employees participated.

As a result, we upgraded our corporate values and defined team behavior indicators. It leveled up our work processes, team communication, and client engagement.

In the second part of the year, we conducted a series of culture-shaping events to unite us around our values. Power of Unity events covered our locations across the globe. 360+ people attended get-together parties and spent time together, communicating, and going through the Values Tour stages.

Thanks to all our people for being with us in 2022. This year shows that no matter the outside turbulence, we know where we’re going, and it gives powerful meaning to our daily work. Together we’ve achieved a lot, and much more is waiting ahead — we have no doubts about it. We are ready to explore and improve the following year.

🎄May the Holidays bring along many more happy and good times for all of us!

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Recap 2022: What a challenging and uniting year it’s been! was originally published in Forte Group on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

This year at Forte, the pre-Christmas period is the time for Forte Advent Calendar “Time for Joy and Unity”.

🎅During this time we will participate in the initiatives that will make this Christmas brighter and cozier. And finally, the most active contributor to our Forte Advent Calendar gets a chance to win a gift.

In this article, we will tell about Day 5 that we devoted to International Volunteer Day🌎. Each year, hundreds of millions of people volunteer their time and skills to help make the world a better place. And Forte people also have something to add about their volunteering experience. Read below these inspiring stories.

Mariya Kovaleva, HR Business Partner

Forte actively participates in initiatives to help animals and organizes team trips to animal shelters. We visit them together and bring medicine and food for the animals. Also, I regularly post information about dogs on my social media to help them find owners.

An interesting fact is that Forte is taking care of the tapir who lives in the zoo. We love animals!

Maria Hernandez, Procurement Specialist

For three years, with my best friend and a group of committed young people who donate their time and activities, we have brought 60 needy children to their Christmas party in Medellín, Colombia.

Since the end of October, we have been looking for godparents and donors who give us snacks, gifts, and decorations, and we coordinate the activities, sweets, raffles, and gifts from Santa Claus. Every year we look for a community that can benefit from this activity and thus brings new children the opportunity to live a beautiful day.

Emil Akhadov, SDET

I participated in the Heart to Heart initiative collecting funds for equipment for children’s hospitals several times. I volunteered as an election observer, cleaned river embankments, and assisted in marathons. When the war started, I provided needed things and clothes to internally displaced people and regularly donated to as many Ukrainians as possible. And finally, I help foreigners learn Ukrainian on Reddit in the section /r/Ukrainian.

Forties remind you: There are many opportunities how to improve the lives of others. Don’t forget to make this Christmas time more special and cozier for someone who needs this!

🔔Follow us for more content on Instagram — Facebook — Twitter — Youtube.

🎄Forte people are volunteering: What do we do to make the world a better place? was originally published in Forte Group on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

We sat down with our team, who learn constantly and create a learning environment at Forte. Our Learning & Development team answered common questions connected with learning. Some team members shared their professional and personal experiences about studying and what’s driving them to acquire new skills.

What are your golden rules of productive learning?

👋Iryna, L&D Manager:

As long as I remember, I have constantly been learning. The first school, then university (twice, by the way), and next was my first job. Afterward, I gradually evolved through the career ladder: different times and different circumstances, but the same obstacles on the route. Sounds surprising, doesn’t it? So, while exploring this adventurous path, I got to the bottom of the mystery of learning and deciphered a few golden rules of practical learning for myself.

1. People start something new, including knowledge acquisition, for two simple reasons — fear or satisfaction. There might be various nuances in those reasons; still, they can be sharpened to the mentioned ones. Thus, while on the edge of any new learning endeavors, define the expected results and indicate what benefits they will bring you or what undesirable outcomes they will prevent. If you write these down — the impact will be even more significant. This technique will keep you motivated; you need to understand WHY to do anything effectively. And this WHY should be your one, based exclusively on your needs and conditions.
2. Quick wins and milestones are essential. You will manage to reach even the far-flung destinations if you outline the halts for celebration. Moreover, short-time goals and achievements let you know you are on the right path and keep you from getting demotivated. Don’t forget about recognition!
3. If you feel afraid of something — go straight there! It’s your area for growth! All new beginnings need to be challenging. Otherwise, you will lose a rewarding aftertaste when you are done.

What to learn now is actual?

😊Yaryna, L&D specialist:

The world around us is changing very fast, and if you want to keep up, you must be prepared for new challenges. For me, what is essential to learn these days is soft skills. They determine how you work with other people, cooperate with your colleagues, solve problems, and adapt to changes and new environments. Mastering soft skills also help to improve your overall effectiveness in life and at work.

Enhancing soft skills takes time, but you can start prioritizing which one you would like to develop, e.g., communication, teamwork, conflict resolution, emotional intelligence, etc., and take one step at a time.

How to learn while working full-time and having time for family, friends, and hobbies?

🍅Yaryna:

I would say it is a matter of priority and good time management. And, yes, it is tough to manage everything simultaneously. So, what can be done about that? I plan my working week and put everything on my calendar so I can see what is waiting for me. And when I say ‘everything’, I mean everything, even my lunch. It helps to manage my time, avoid overworking, and complete my tasks on time. I never worked over the weekend to spend more time with my family and friends. And when I have quite a few tasks to be done during one day, I sometimes use the Pomodoro technique (25 minutes working, 5 minutes resting), which helps me to focus more on work and not be distracted by unimportant things.

✈Veronika, English Instructor:

When you are an adult with a busy schedule, it can be challenging to squeeze some learning into it. So, here bite-sized learning comes into play.

These small pieces of information usually take up to 15–20 minutes to explore or learn.

So, the learning process is broken down into a series of small steps. It is clear as it sounds. You take little time to consume the information, and you learn regularly.

Here are a few reasons to adopt the bite-sized type of learning (aka microlearning):

1. You may apply the information learned immediately (as you’re not overwhelmed with too much data in one go).
2. The mobile learning format is a great fit here.
3. You are more likely to stay engaged and interested in learning.
4. It’s a perfect fit for refresher training (when the environment is evolving and there’s no need for an entire course).
5. You may stay flexible and learn in a self-paced mode.
6. You may easily get just-in-time support.

How to learn a new skill quickly?

🚀Yaryna:

I genuinely believe that there is a difference between knowledge and skill. You can learn a lot of things, but skills come with practice. My motto is “Practice makes perfect,” so I believe it takes time to transform your knowledge into skills. And when you do, you realize how essential it is to commit your time to learn, get new knowledge and practice, and understand you have done everything right. That’s when you benefit from your hard work and can use your skill easily.

So, decide what skill you want to master, and work on it with passion and dedication. And remember — only practice makes perfect!

📚Tania, English Instructor:

For all of us as digital natives, everything seems to be just at the click of a button. There is a pool of apps, tutorials, courses, workshops, and podcasts. However, there is still no universal recipe for how to master a skill and do it in a blink of an eye. The only thing I can suggest is interacting with information. No, you don’t have to read, watch, listen, or talk as much as you can. Don’t invest your time into drilling, memorizing, and cramping. Pick the meaningful skill for you, learn the basics and practice. Find out for yourself what works and what doesn’t. And as the Chinese proverb says:

“Be not afraid of going slowly, be afraid only of standing still.”

How to stay a motivated learner and don’t lose interest?

⭐Yaryna:

There is no ‘one size fits all recipe, in my opinion. Different people are motivated by other things. I agree with those who say there is a difference between motivation and inspiration. You can be inspired by the desire to work hard and get a promotion or save enough money to buy a house; motivation is a driving force behind our actions. Inspiration comes within you and can provide the willingness necessary to spark your drive. As for me, motivation and inspiration go hand in hand.

You cannot be motivated forever, but if you find something that inspires you, you will see how the process of learning becomes much more accessible.

Inspiration drives us, whereas motivation is a pulling force — combine them, and you will find the key to success!

🏆Veronika:

Revise your learning goals and content once in a while.

First off, you need to have a goal. That will be perfect if you manage to set a SMART learning goal: A plan that is specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound. When you have an aim, it’s easier to see the result of the efforts made, and you end up being fulfilled. So, take some time to revise your goals from time to time to check whether they are still relevant and meaningful for you. You might want to make the most of your learning to stay motivated. You need to have a chance to apply your new skills and have a ground for success cases.

📌Tania:

When it comes to increasing your engagement and staying motivated, a good idea would be to get an “accountability buddy.” It can be a friend or partner (or any other social support person) to help you follow through on your commitment, encourage your wins, and not just guilt-trip you into messing up. Positive reinforcement is potent for keeping us motivated, especially in the long run.

On top of that, you should define the learning style to get the most out of your learning and optimize your study habits.

You can explore the VARK model and look into Visual, Aural, Read/write, and Kinesthetic styles to identify unique modes of learning that help you tailor your strategy.

🎯Caro, English Instructor:

Did you know that you are unique and don’t learn the same way everybody does? Well! Let me tell you that every brain functions differently, and I recommend the following webpage with some questions for you to discover which one is your learning style. It also has some strategies for you to use when you are learning because when you know more about your learning style, you will become conscious of how some information remains in your brain.

By understanding what kind of learner you are, you can gain a better perspective on implementing these learning styles into your study techniques.

What are the ways to learn English by myself?

🌎Vitalii, English Instructor:

I believe learning a language is like going to a gym. The more you do it, the more perfect you get. All you have to do is do it regularly and consistently. In the beginning, you should have someone who will teach you some basics; later, you can do it independently. Besides, it would be best if you didn’t think of mistakes; no one is perfect. You will gradually eliminate errors when you pay attention to how native speakers speak. Read, watch, listen, and don’t be afraid to use the language whenever you have a chance. Don’t learn separate words; learn phrases and use them in sentences. Try writing a diary in English or making up funny stories. Yes, it will take some of your time, just be patient and creative.

Don’t expect someone to motivate or push you. You are the person who is responsible for your English level.

No one will drag you inside a gym against your will. It’s the same story with your English.

Ultimately, stay consistent during your learning journey, but don’t be afraid to change the direction if it proves to be more gainful.

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Learn How to Learn: Boost Your Educational Process and Learning Capacity was originally published in Forte Group on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

We met up with the sourcing team to talk about their career paths, their ups and downs, and we asked them for a piece of advice on how to land your career in IT.

Ira, as we know, you’re currently in the process of promotion from Researcher to Recruiter. Could you please tell us about your career path?

Before I joined Forte Group, I had never worked in IT, but I had many acquaintances in this field who recommended trying my hand at it. I took Forte QA courses, but it turned out that the technical side of IT didn’t interest me. Then I got to know about an open position for an IT Researcher at Forte Group and decided to send my CV. That’s how I started my career at Forte in particular and IT in general.

I started working during the pandemic, and all my onboarding was online. But we always had a clear onboarding plan in our team, and even the pandemic could not interfere with it. I liked the idea that the Recruitment team conducted all the onboarding trainings, so there was an extra opportunity to get to know each other and ask questions.

Were there any difficulties?

When you’re a junior Researcher, you may get confused about technology. At first, it seems like you are out of the loop and will never be able to catch up with all the tools and technologies. But you should never be afraid to ask for help and clarifications. Making mistakes is natural, just be more determined.

These are excellent tips, Ira. You’re about to start working as a Recruiter soon. Please share how you got a promotion.

You usually start with sourcing, job posts, searching for candidates, and writing to them. The list of responsibilities is growing with time and experience. When I started to deal with everything easily, to find more and more relevant candidates for the tough vacancies, we discussed my promotion plan with the Team Lead. Naturally, during the transition process, you make mistakes, but it’s helpful because you learn much faster from them.

It might be difficult to tell the difference between a Recruiter and a Researcher. Can you help us figure it out?

• The Researcher just sources candidates and schedules calls with the Recruiter. All further communication with the candidate goes through the Recruiter.
• The Recruiters have more responsibility for the job and the candidate in general. They are job savvy because they communicate directly with the tech interviewers, Account Managers, and Team Leads.
• The Recruiters have much more liability. They can decide whether the candidate is suitable and whether it is worth spending their time and the candidate’s time on the interview.

Masha, why did you choose sourcing as your profession?

I have a degree in engineering. During my studies, I was trying to “find myself” and took a lot of courses: I learned Java and passed QA courses, but that didn’t fit me. I was the monitor of my group at the University, and all my groupmates noticed that I actually liked filling out all kinds of documents and forms. Everyone said I’d be a great HR manager or a Recruiter. I decided to try this direction, took a recruiting course, and here I am.

Great story! So as I understood, Forte Group is your first place of work as a Researcher. Share, please, what your first impressions about Forte and your new role were.

I was delighted with the office and the team on my first working day.

I realized that was the place I had always wanted to be and the job I had always dreamed about. The place where I belong!

I’m proud to help people to find a job. It is an incredible feeling when you meet a newcomer in the office with the eyes shining — you see the person and think, “yeah, that’s my candidate!”

Let’s talk about your daily duties. Olena, what’ do you like the most about being a Researcher?

My day mainly consists of searching for appropriate candidates from various sources, most often on Dice.com and LinkedIn. Also, I can collaborate with my team to discuss some tasks. From time to time, I prepare posts for the Job Board. Most of all I like communicating with people. That’s how I charge my batteries and stay in high spirits all day long

What do you dislike then?

There’s nothing, actually, cause I like my job. Sometimes I just hate to work altogether:)

Yep, all of us have lazy days sometimes 😊. The main thing is not to give in to procrastination and remember why you love your job. By the way, what inspires you most about your role?

I like being a technical specialist dealing with communication — lots of communication, no monotonous work. What inspires me most about our team is the motivation to learn. I always have the opportunity to learn something new and improve my hard and soft skill set.

Every day Researchers have to deal with a variety of difficulties and issues. Halyna, what or who helps you to cope with those?

These are usually the Recruiters I work with — these are precisely the people I can turn to first. It is also a Team Lead who always helps with solutions. And, of course, the whole team. Everyone can help if they are competent in my question.

There has never been such an answer as “google it” or “figure it out yourself.” No, this is not about our team.

After all, what is the most vital and valuable motivation for you?

As we work for the result, my candidates’ job offers and further employment is the best motivation. It is inspiring when you realize that it was you who found this person, agreed on a call with the recruiter, then with the client and everyone likes this candidate, and in the end, he or she receives an offer and then accepts it. The whole employment process gives you a strong feeling that all your efforts were not in vain. I’m fond of contributing to the company’s development. That’s how I really make a difference.

At Forte Group, we strive to be versatile, curious, resourceful and ahead of the curve. Polina, tell us, please, what helps you to keep up to speed?

Yes, Researchers have to be on the ball and, and it is precious that the company provides multiple opportunities to learn and advance. When I joined Forte, our developers held a series of knowledge-sharings, explaining and discussing their technical stuff. These workshops were held specifically for the recruiters, so we could better understand the processes in teams and tech stacks. It was very helpful to learn about programming firsthand — from people who deal with such things on a daily basis.

Occasionally Forte recruitment team holds internal knowledge-sharings, where we share our tips , new tools we found, etc. Our team is very supportive and responsive. If someone finds any helpful materials, we immediately share them. I felt it immediately when we started exploring the Polish market. At that time, we were all actively studying new tools, opportunities, and the market in general.

What learning resources for Researchers and Recruiters can you recommend?

I can recommend the following podcasts: NEW HR Podcast, and Handflow Insight.

Youtube channels: HR Network club, ITbeard, Hurma, Mike Pritula Academy

Blog: Boolean Strings by Irina Shamaeva. Irina tells how to create Boolean Strings, shares valuable advice, and life hacks for Researchers.

That’s quite a long list! I think you’ve learned a lot from these sources, but what have you learned while working as a Researcher?

Working for a long-term relationship with candidates. This is crucial because a lot of candidates I used to communicate with contacted me when they found a suitable vacancy in the company or were just interested in open vacancies. It means that you have to be attentive to every candidate, even if they are not suitable for the position at the moment or there are no open positions they would fit. So, attention to candidates and work for the future — the main lesson I’ve learned.

Inna, what helps you stay interested in your work and move forward?

You have to love what you do. And I’m not going to go on that long, but it solves many problems because you work harder when you love what you do.

Undoubtedly, never give up. You can change and move around, but never give up — you have to believe in yourself.

I think the team can also help you stay interested cause these are people you interact with on a daily basis. Can you describe your team in three words?

Well, firstly, I would say that they’re super, super committed to their roles. Secondly, I’d have to say inspiring. And the last one would be supportive. It’s so great to work in a place where everybody supports each other and is willing to work together collaboratively. I love my team to the moon and back!

Please give a piece of advice to those who want to start a career as a Researcher.

Love a good mystery? Researchers need to love detective work 🔎. Ain’t no elevator to the top, you got to take the stairs. So, my advice is to be open and, more importantly, be passionate. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. And, of course, relax. Go slow to go fast!

Now you know firsthand who’s at the forefront of talent acquisition at Forte Group. So look through the list of open vacancies on our career website, and don’t hesitate to send us your CV!

PS You can write directly to our Researchers on Linkedin and ask all your questions about the job openings.

Behind the scene of the IT Researcher’s path was originally published in Forte Group on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Today, on the Recruiters’ day, we asked the team to tell us about the recruitment process at Forte and share some life hacks, tips, and secrets for a successful recruiting process. Dive into this article to know how to answer your recruiter’s tricky questions, how to pass the interview and receive an offer.

It is always better to start with an introduction. Nadia, please describe our Forte recruitment team.

Our recruitment team is like a Family. There is healthy competition, and everyone supports one another. When we all worked from the office, sharing one room, it was a friendly and pleasant environment. These days, we successfully adapt to the remote work setting. We schedule daily stand-up meetings with our cameras and discuss open roles and work-related challenges. Besides, on Fridays, we make the meeting more personal and share our feelings, private matters, hobbies, plans for the weekend, etc. As we are in different locations now, it helps us to relate to each other and create a bond between all team members. As a Team Lead, I always care about people and do my best to be supportive and responsive.

Can you describe a typical Forte Group recruiters’ portrait?

Our Recruiters are quite seasoned, ranging from middle to senior-level professionals. We mainly hire experienced recruiters with some background in product and outsourcing companies.

At the same time, we strive to grow talents. I mean, we hire people without IT experience only with Advanced English for the Researcher’s role and teach them all the nuts and bolts of full-cycle recruitment. For example, Iryna Makohon has worked with us for almost 5 years. She joined our Ternopil office as a Researcher and is now a Senior IT Recruiter with an impressive portfolio of hired IT professionals.

In the ever-changing world, there are always new technologies, new languages, new forms of work, and so on. Please tell us, how does our recruitment team keep up with all the changes and innovations in the labor market?

Some of the company’s values are resourcefulness and curiosity. As a team, we utilize this approach by conducting monthly internal team knowledge sessions to share professional advice, new tools, and life hacks on communication with candidates. English classes are also a must for the team, as it’s the primary language of communication inside the company. Also, we have external professional training, the last topic was about negotiations.

So as you see, we constantly grow and develop. There are always new tasks, process improvements, new markets. So boring — this is definitely not about us. Currently, there are 20+ people on the team, and it’s not a limit — right now, we have an open position for a researcher. So if you are considering joining a dream team — this opportunity is definitely for you!

Katya, can you share some insider knowledge about the recruiting process?

The recruitment process at Forte Group is very structured, and everyone who joins our team notices it. Although a lot of people are involved in the process, everyone knows exactly who’s responsible for each step. We are focused on solving the problem and strive to help each other in this endeavor. We always consider a candidate for a specific project, so at the first meeting, we share information about the project, team, and stack. It is vital to note here that a recruiter works closely with a researcher during the search process.

Tell us more about the differences between a recruiter and a researcher.

The recruiter and researcher are involved in the search process, but only the recruiter will accompany the candidate through all stages. After the researcher finds the candidates, he/she sends them to the recruiter for further communication. Recruiters are entirely leading the candidate from the first call to the first working day. We stay in touch through the whole Forte employment and beyond.

How often do candidates write first?

Quite often at this moment. If the candidate writes first, the recruiter tries to choose the most suitable project and team for him. As each position is unique and each candidate is unique — we’re eager to find the ideal match.

Kateryna, in which locations do Forte search for candidates? Where do our employees already work? Name the most unusual location where we hired a candidate.

Today, we are searching for people around the globe. We have had candidates from Germany, Italy, Portugal, Netherlands, Romania, and many more. Therefore, I already have rich experience conducting interviews with representatives from different countries and continents. To be honest, nothing surprises me anymore. Since we now work with the whole world, Spain does not seem to be something unusual, and the same with Netherlands or Romania.

Have you noticed any national differences in the behavior of candidates from different countries?

I noticed that Spaniards are passionate and speak a lot about themselves. The Norwegians, on the contrary, are very explicit, they will not say anything extra. Italians want to know all the slightest details and are very demanding. The Portuguese are always very welcoming. And the Swedes are very busy, it is always difficult for them to find time slots for interviews.

Oksana, tell us why are some vacancies closing quickly and others much longer?

It depends greatly on a technology stack, requirements, and sometimes the season. In fact, I would say that a lot depends on luck. You can search for people for weeks or find the candidate that immediately fits the vacancy — these cases give me incredible motivation to work.

Can you remember the vacancy that was closed the fastest?

Sure! It was a .NET Developer, we closed this vacancy literally in 3 days! I quickly found a candidate, he passed a technical interview successfully, and we sent an offer. I can remember one more “fast closed” vacancy. During one week, only a candidate for the Senior Magento 2 Developer role passed the interview and signed the job offer.

What was the most complicated position to close?

I was a researcher, and we had a C++ Architect vacancy with a set of complex technologies that almost no one used at that time. There were a lot of candidates, but each of them lacked something and had difficulties passing the client’s interview. However, in the end, we found a very talented specialist in Ukraine who charmed the client’s representatives and was successfully hired.

So nothing is impossible for our Team!

Masha, would you mind sharing how to pass the first interview successfully? Name key points in your opinion.

1.The first thing to pay attention to is that you should prepare for the interview. You need to be ready to tell about your experience. Briefly, but without missing the most important details. Prepare your portfolio — this immediately shows your interest. It is also crucial to tell what duties you performed before. Look through the vacancy and the company’s website, learn a few things about your interviewer/s. They might be your potential future manager or team lead.

Of course, you should be well-timed and find a quiet place if it’s an online interview. The online interview does not mean that you can connect to the call from literally anywhere. Increasingly, candidates are connecting to interviews from the car while driving. The Internet does not work well, the connection is terrible, and the interference is very distracting.

2.Be sincere. You never need to lie about your experience. It is better to say honestly that you do not know something and offer your way of solving this matter you were asked about. Show your willingness to learn and research. It is way worse if your lie turns out later and entails problems.

3.Do not speak negatively about the previous employer. How many people do you know who have worked in the same place all their life? So at some point, any employer can become a former one. Such negative comments undermine trust.

4.Observe subordination. We are primarily in the workplace. Therefore, don’t show inappropriate signs of attention to recruiters during the interviews.

A lot of candidates still wonder why recruiters are asking cliché questions, such as “whom you see yourself as after three years” or “what motivates you.” So Katya, can you answer why?

Each interview has a structure, and each time we collect a puzzle — what are the requirements, the project’s most exciting points, and the candidate’s experience? These cliche questions usually appear in the interview’s second half, after we discussed the experience and technical stack. At this stage, you need to check if the person fits the team and the company. All candidates are already accustomed to standard questions and answers with prepared phrases. But if you slightly change the message or structure of the question, it makes the candidate think about the answer.

Lifehack for Recruiters: ask these tricky questions in English if you are interviewing a non-native English-speaking candidate. He will have less time to think and will answer sincerely.

It seems to me that this kind of question is crucial because it helps to understand some inner motivation or even secrets of the candidate. You just need to be able to paraphrase it. For example, instead of the standard “what motivates you,” you can ask “what event on your career path has become the most iconic.” Such questions will immediately help to identify what is essential for the candidate and what he would like to see in a new place of work.

Ira, you’ve been working in Forte Group for almost five years. Did any funny situations happen to you during the interview?

Yes, a lot! One of the most favorite funny stories happened when we were still working offline. I scheduled an interview with the candidate, gave him our office address, agreed on the time, and everything went well. At this point, it is worth mentioning that the address of our Ternopil office is 32 Torgovytsia street, building A. It was quite often when candidates missed the part with “building A” and arrived at 32 Torgovytsia street, where the restaurant was located. So it was that morning. I had been waiting for the candidate for about 10 minutes, I decided to call and ask if he would come, and he answered that he was already in place and was waiting for me. I checked the entire office and found him nowhere. I called again, and it turned out that he was waiting for me in a restaurant. He thought the interview would be held there.

Another funny situation was when the candidate came to the interview in biker gear. It was summer outside, I can’t imagine how hot he was in these clothes! But it was nice that he held on with dignity and successfully passed this interview.

Right away you have a unique opportunity to use all the gained knowledge in practice and join the Forte Group team! Look through the list of open vacancies on our career website, and don’t hesitate to send us your CV!

Stay tuned to not miss fascinating content with the Forte Recruitment teams from other locations.

Meet the Forte Group Recruitment Team was originally published in Forte Group on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.